World Economy Melting Down


Global-Political Economy

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You have indeed sparked my curiosity. With both the velocity of money and the trading volume declining since 1998, this seems to be a very dangerous position and your work is really eye opening. I read your Transactional Banking and it seems that this has changed everything for the worse. Your Big Bang seems to have been on target starting with 2015.75 as that was the peak in government and we have seen a further decline in economic growth. With trading volume bottoming in 2014 and your War Cycle turning up also in 2014, the picture is starting to come into focus. Your warning of a Phase Transition building is also starting to make sense for the volume is at the lows not the highs and it appears you are forecasting a big rush out of government debt into private. I think I am beginning to see the future and this looks crazy indeed. Am I on the right track?

Thank you so much for the most thought provoking blog on the web.

JD

ANSWER: Yes, you are on the right track. We are caught in a riptide of events that we cannot escape from. The bigger picture connects all these models together. Our political models and war cycle, as well as the transactional banking evolution and sovereign debt crisis, are lining up to reshape the future in a way I had hoped would be wrong. We held the Solution Conference to show the way out. It gives me no pleasure in bringing all of this together. I cannot simply reduce this to a single cause and effect. This is not even about one country; it is primitive to talk about the dollar and how it will crash and burn without any comprehension of the real trend in motion on a global scale. Politicians are doing whatever they can to make this insanity worse. Merkel is allowing a cultural invasion of Europe and she will not stop. The G20 as of January 1, 2017, will track every dime globally and share info on everyone for taxes.

USA Net Cap 1960-1990 Annotated

From 1983 onward, the capital flows have shifted in preparation for this private wave. This is what made the dollar reach record highs in 1985 with the British pound dropping to par. Of course, this also made our Capital Flow Models world famous, and now even China has publicly stated they use capital flow analysis to manage monetary policy. What made the world economy recover following World War II was that USA ended up with 76% of the world gold reserves, which made the dollar the reserve currency. Americans invested outside of the USA and restarted the world economy. Now we have FATCA and Americans cannot even have a bank account outside the USA, no less start a business. Capital is contracting into the USA. Now the G20 will make that contract even more. With tax havens destroyed by the IMF’s threats to unplug them from the SWIFT system to stop money going in or out of their countries, the only place is the United States for Americans, by law, and the rest of the world once again as was the case for World War I and II.

This is why we will be putting this all together at this year’s World Economic Conference. It is an amazing picture, no doubt. Whatever could go wrong is going wrong. The vast majority of people will lose everything — that is just the way it goes. The model is designed to give us the CONFIRMING points (e.g. if this happens, then this will occur). So when you approach this globally, only then will the trend make your eyes pop open. It appears 2017 is opening the door. Nobody has ever lived through such an event, so I do not understand how it is even possible to do this from an “opinion” perspective. To survive, we need a comprehensive global model you can see.

Gnats and Irrelevant Nuts – The Economically Dissonant Opposition…


The Fallacy of False Choice: Why Bill Kristol Keeps Talking Up Another Option….


John Boehner: “Anyone Who Thinks Donald Trump Can’t Win – Just Watch”…


TTIP is the Bookend to the WTO Agreement to Protect Bankers


 

TTIP
The TTIP proposal is bought and paid for by the banks. Why? Pick up the rug and you will always find the dirt. The USA has been fining European banks vast amounts of money. The New York banks, especially Goldman Sachs, is shaking like a leaf that they could be hauled into European courts to pay for the collapse of Greek debt for starters. The main stumbling block with TTIP is how it has been written at the request of the bankers to prohibit any foreign country from suing a New York banks anywhere by New York City – where they own the judges today just as the Mafia use to during the Prohibition days.

Rubin-ROBERTBack in 1999, the ex-Goldman Sachs U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said that crafting a deal that will let China into the World Trade Organization was “eminently doable.” Yes it was Robert Rubin who not only orchestrated the repeal of Glass Steagall, few people realize that he also opened the door so Goldman Sachs could even sell derivative time-bombs outside the USA. He managed to stuff into the World Trade Organization agreement, the financial services portion that placed the world at the door-step of Goldman Sachs.

This deal covered “95% of the global financial services market as measured in revenue. With this deal, 102 WTO members now have market-opening commitments in the financial services sector, including 70 improved offers in this round of negotiations. The commitments before us now encompass $17.8 trillion in global securities assets; $38 trillion in global (domestic) bank lending; and $22.2 trillion in worldwide insurance premiums. In insurance alone, US companies now have more than $200 billion in foreign premiums.” (Statement by Secretary Rubin and Ambassador Barshefsky Regarding the Successful Conclusion of the WTO Financial Services Negotiations 12/13/1997)

TTIP is now all about protecting the banks for lawsuits because they blew-up the world and seriously damaged the global economy. Under Ronald Reagan, the annual GDP growth was 3.5%. Obama will pray for 1.5%. Trading volume in the S&P500 as well as the velocity of money have crashed and burned ever since Rubin connived to repealed Glass Steagal giving birth to Transactional Banking. TTIP is by no means a real trade deal. It is one-sided and intended primarily to protect the New York bankers.

Trading Volumes Declines as Hoarding Rises due to Uncertainty


S&P500 Trading Volume 1982-2016

QUESTION: Everyone in the gold industry says you are wrong. The stock market will crash by 90% and gold will soar. Will you address that scenario just once?


Fed Velocity of Money May 1 2016ANSWER:
I have answered this frivolous question countless times. This is the most bearish rally in stocks ever. That is why the stock market has kept rising. The shorts always have to buy back. Just look at the big hedge funds. Their performance has declined markedly because they have taken that typical view. I displayed how the Velocity of money peaked in 1998 and has been in a bear market ever since. Naturally, people believe what they want to believe and ignore anything that shows them to be wrong. Well now look that the ANNUAL accumulative trading volume in the S&P500. It too peaked in 1996. Volume finally bottomed in 2014 and is at last edging up. We expected the turn upward in 2015 as this was also 86 years from 1929 (8.6 * 10).

JumperEven the speculative bets on the direction of currencies have also dropped to the lowest in years, while average daily trading among dealers in U.S. Treasuries is close to a seven-year low.

I’m sorry. But please explain to me how the stock market will fall to 10 cents on the dollar when there is no massive retail speculation? This is by no means 1929 with people jumping out of windows. You want to believe that so no matter what evidence I show you, you will say I am wrong and just ignore me.

There is something far more sinister at foot. Just keep listening to that nonsense since it makes you feel better. The rest of us will be reviewing the world economy to get a glimpse at just what the heck is really going on here that have confounded all the theories devised by classic thinkers.

Mr. Trump Goes To Washington…


Once Trump is elected this is the cabal that he will need to deal with and that will not be a nice exchange as I believe that will fight is ideas tooth and nail!

New Jersey to Follow Illinois Down the Drain


Constitutional Law

The New Jersey State Assembly has begun the pursuit of a constitutional amendment to guarantee pension payments for government workers over all other types of state spending. This would naturally include all politicians, which is why they are introducing it. Because spending on education, health, crime, environment, welfare etc. is not guaranteed by the Constitution and is subject to elimination to pay for the pensions of 800,000 current and former public employees, politicians want to amend the Constitution and that means property taxes will SOAR. This means the people of New Jersey have to stop this insanity for once; it is a constitutional amendment, that is it. They will rob everything you have as a constitutional requirement.

Come November, without explaining the seriousness of the issue, the New Jersey Legislature will put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot that would provide consistent state payments each year to the $79 billion New Jersey Pension Fund. The best advice is to sell your home and get out now. If this goes through, property taxes will explode as they did in Illinois and the value of your home will drop. Sell and rent, but do not own unless you live in a state like Florida or Texas.

Seven states have specific clauses in their constitutions that protect public employee pensions: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, and New York. We have already seen Illinois on the brink of bankruptcy. Illinois will be completely devastated. There is no hope whatsoever, for changing the Constitution at this point in the game would only apply prospectively. That means these states will see an explosion in taxes over the next four years and they may simply be forced into bankruptcy if they are unable to meet bond payments for pensions come first.

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TRUMP KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING — PERIOD THE END!

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Keep in mind this is the religion of peace; so its really really good that its not the religion of war!